Tag Archives: trinity

Today I’m finally putting pen to paper for a short introduction to two of Edwards’s miscellanies for a reader being published by Jonathan Edwards Press.

In the reader I will be introducing Miscellany 96 which is on the Trinity and Miscellany 279 which is on the torments of hell. The plan is basically to introduce each miscellany and then explain how Edwards’s Trinitarian doctrine relates to his doctrine of hell.

Here is a pretty sloppy summary of Edwards’s two arguments against Unitarianism – a very early modern concern – in Miscellany 96.

Argument #1 – A Theological Argument

Claim: There must be more than a unity in infinite and eternal essence.

Argument:

To be perfectly good is to incline to and delight in making another happy in the same proportion as it is happy itself.

God is perfectly good, therefore God is inclined and delights in making another happy in the same proportion as he is happy.

This claim has to do with Edwards’s idea of communication. A perfectly good being desires and delights in communicating the fullness of itself to others, so that others may enjoy the goodness of that first being.

This however doesn’t get you Trinitarianism yet because a Unitarian God could “potentially” delight in making another as happy as God is himself. More is needed.

Goodness is delight in communicating happiness.

If “goodness” is perfect, the delight to communicate must be perfect.

A delight is perfect if an only if the inclination to communicate happiness to the other is equal to an agent’s own inclination to be happy.

To be the object of perfect delight one must be X and Y

A creatures cannot (1)God cannot love a creature as much as God loves himself, (2) a creature cannot receive the fullness of God’s communication.

Therefore creatures cannot be the object of God’s desire to communicate perefectly.

If God exercises his perfect goodness then he must have fellowship with a person capable of receiving the fullness of God’s love and communication.

If God is good then God must exercise perfect goodness.

God is good

Therefore God exercises perfect goodness

God exercises perfect goodness

Therefore God has fellowship with a person capable of receiving the fullness of God’s love and communication.

It follows that there is an object to which God perfectly delight in communicating which is not a creature.

It follows from this that there must more than a unity in the infinite and eternal essence.

This year’s Payton Lectures are being given by the Right Reverend Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury – what follows are my notes from the responses given to the second lecture.

Payton LecturesTheology and Human Rights: Tension or Convergence“Rights, Recognition, and the Body of Christ” (Responses)The Right Reverend Rowan Williams

Response #1: Sebastian Kim

Williams treatment of this subject leaves us much enriched with a sense of complexity of this topic. Thank you. What I appreciate most is twofold: 1) Having established his idea of the connection b/w secular and theological context, he touched on the biblical concepts. Atonement plays a big role. 2) Justice is a divine gift and not a human achievement. The worshipping church is a community of justice because it worships what alone deserves to be worshiped. Giving to God what is God’s right is accomplished in the life and death of Christ – all receive their rights because of God’s giving.

While I appreciate the theological insights I would like to raise some questions:

Williams mentioned that the worshipping community is a community of justice. The doctrines of justice and rights should be discussed side by side, but as we learn from Scripture, the people of worship do not always act justly. It is too much to assume that the church is a divine community of justice. Knowing and doing justice do not often go hand in hand.

Discussion of justice and rights should also include the difficulty of how to apply J&R between different groups. The concept of justice in the Hebrew bible is different from the philosophical aspect because it is not an abstract concept. In the bible it is taking care of the victims of unjust systems: minorities, the weak, the oppressed.

Christian theology provides resources for the global discussion of human rights, however, I wonder whether his comments are to cautious and whether Xians should say that Xian theology embodies the notion of rights, not just b/c of the imago dei, but b/c it is grounded in being in Christ.

Lastly, Christians played a significant role in the UDHR. Towards the end of WW2 Christian leaders raised concerns about HR. There was a consensus for a universal bill of rights. Christians in the west were actively involved in drafting this bill. By ensuring religious freedom, Christians provided an anchorage of HR discussion in the human dignity in the image of God.

The challenge before us is how do we repent of not giving God his due of justice. How do we boldly demonstrate and practice human rights from a Christian standpoint.

Response #2: Erin Dufault-Hunter

The eloquently articulated, Christian account he offers, provides ground for questioning the discussion of rights language. We must remember what brought about the UDHR – the horror of sin and darkness in the wake of WW2.

The problem w/ Williams defense of rights, is that such language cannot produce the kind of people who battle the demonic. How do I know? The history of my own country in the 40’s and 50’s. We saw ourselves as the civilized who fought the good fight in the war, yet our practices of justice were absent at home. The UDHR of human rights flounders, not just because the UN is a weak organization. It is not merely because the US flaunts the rights of others through enhanced interrogation techniques. HR falters because law cannot make the culture we need – it cannot inculcate virtues. Untethered from a robust story, it fails to shape us.

Williams lectures are an example of why Christians should receive the bodies of others, even enemies, as a gift.

The Civil Rights Movement resisted evil, not by making claims, instead it drew on our moral intuitions by shaming us into reform.

The CRM, was always first about poetry, about capturing our imaginations, about dreaming of a beloved community. It allowed us to dream of alternatives to violence. But the demonic recognized that imagination is stronger than law to enforce its end. Thus, the CRM failed because “law” does not provide us with the weapons to actively resist evil. We have used “rights” as a shield from having to do justice.

What then are we to do? We must take up Williams’ vision to our churches, foster an imagination, we must bathe ourselves in the beautiful trinitarian theology of gift.

Use human rights language – but do not forget the story of those rights – rights enfleshed in a community by God’s grace and gifts. We must not abandon our Trinitarian framing of them.

Rowan Williams’ Response

Both respondents have picked up the fact that words are not what we should be focused on. Its easy to use “rights” as a shield to make the discourse of human rights as something which is self-congratulatory, self-protective.

I hold to the use of rights discourse in the face of this, I don’t think however that rights language itself is formative. There are those contexts in the world where such vocabulary is necessary for resisting dehumanization. But what actually motivates us to become persons who enact these rights? That is indeed an issue about the kind of communities we are seeking to create. This is indeed an issue of imagination.

The law is good and holy and right, but it doesn’t actually do anything. That is what Paul seems to say.

Who’s not here and who’s not speaking? This should be a natural reflex in believing community.

Lord Acton: The foundation of all political liberty is religious liberty. – There is a territory where power just cannot go, that is the seed of recognition that political power is not final, not all controlling.

Discussion

RW: If we are activists because we want to be effective we are discouraged. If we are activists because we want to witness we can carry on. If its just about bringing results, cynicism is around the culture. The opposite danger is utopianism.

EDH: One of my concerns about this generation’s activism, the danger, make sure you can say “come and see.” If you can’t sit at a table where people live in this reality, our activism belies a vacuous which is utterly dangerous to our souls.

RW: The focus on the sacredness of property, is a slightly modern one. We need a stronger sense of how states work with the grain of natural communities, with the grain of cooperative venture, so that we don’t simply see the characteristic modern standoff between individual and state.

EDH: The OT has some strong things to say about private property. This is quite applicable, especially when it deals when taking land. How do we reckon this with the OT’s concern that about giving land back. OT – God’s justice isn’t equality, but what happens when greed and consumption runs amok.

RH: On this Jubilee principle, as an Anglican, the Book of Common Prayer, in the earlier drafts, the exhortation to Holy Communion included an exhortation to unlawful withholding of the lands and good of others.

Q: What is our role as Christians against police brutality.

RH: As a foreigner, I see extraordinary tolerance of race-based violence by law enforcement. I find myself baffled by apparent non-concern by certain circles in this country. Law-enforcement is a public good which should not be franchised to interest groups.

This year’s Payton Lectures are being given by the Right Reverend Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury – what follows are my notes from the second lecture.

Payton LecturesTheology and Human Rights: Tension or Convergence“Rights, Recognition, and the Body of Christ” (Lecture)The Right Reverend Rowan Williams

What is owed to human beings in light of their humanity?

Humanity’s existence is a free gift

“Healing” is a matter of gratuitous generosity

The matter of indebtedness works only one way, God owes us nothing, one might say

God’s creation may be gratuitous, yet it arises out of God’s eternal wisdom.

When God shows love and mercy to human beings, it is for God’s sake, not merely theirs. God honors his own fidelity and consistency in showing them compassion. God acts to uphold the divine pledge. God we might say, honors God, gives himself what is owed to God by forgiving humans. Christianity recognizes this gift – Christ alone gives God what is God’s due.

God is bound to the human creation because God is bound to God. This is the basis for the entire scriptural doctrine of justice.

The flow of life from God to creation, is in full harmony with the flow of life in divinity itself.

A theological approach to rights may begin with what creation itself entails. It will be filled out further with our understanding of Christ.

Rights language in a religious language is part of the “sacred.” The recognition of the other as a creature, that is the primitive generator of any theologically generated notion of “ius.” Recognition is a cultural skill/habit. Mere legal understanding will deliver less than a cultural recognition of some other’s rights. Twofold relation: X to the creator, and X to the other creatures in a network of relations.

The ground of rights is the presence of the body itself – as an irreducible inalienable place by which we make sense. It is a unique point of orientation which shapes our construction of meaning. The body is a place of orientation, the place from which we start making sense.

If the capacity for self-presentation is present, then respecting a human agent is respecting that capacity.

AQ: Why care about fairness? B/c distribution of goods is how we help others be who they were created to be.

Worthiness, is not a finite quality of a finite achievement.

Worthiness rests of the raw fact of being a bodily presence in a system of activity depending on the integrity and cooperation of all other finite presences.

Christ’s gift to the Father is the only finite gift given to God which matches what God actually deserves.

The justice of Christ’s self-offering is in its effect of renewing humanity in God.

The worshiping church is a community of justice because it worships what alone deserves to be worshipped. This act of just worship secures justice in the community, because all are giving God, God’s right.

When we are restored to God in worship we are able to serve one another rather than ourselves. This is our ultimate right. This is the liberty to be what we were made to be.

Our right is to freely honor the right of our neighbor.

A just social order doesn’t prescribe in advance what each agent gets to exercise. This is discovered in the living out of life in a community.

Justice is anchored in God acting for God’s sake.

The language of rights was learned and refined over a long period. It took time to learn how to talk about rights. Even when that language is dominated by rationalism (i.e. Locke), even w/ the myth of the self as a consumer, it has the ability to be a critique of power.

God honors God by honoring what is not God. What is not God carries the meaning and words of God, especially in the Word made Flesh. Our alignment with honoring God involves a challenge to our own conception of power, and calls us to reimagine power in the divine image.

Rethinking power as the ability to share/restore – allows us to situate rights language in a framework which is not fundamentally oppositional.

Law alone doesn’t prompt urgency when human rights are violated. But violation is a very strong word. If Millbank is right, then it relates to the sacredness of others.

The frustration of someone else’s right is a loss to the entire social ecology, and thus a loss for me.

Get your prisons wrong and you are probably getting everything wrong.

Rights are relational. Damage to one part is a damage to the entire system.

We shouldn’t conclude that modern discourse is completely disconnected from medieval discourse. The problematic elements arrives in stages: atomization, implicitly conditionality, and the property language that comes with it. But the idea of incommunicable or inalienable rights isn’t a byproduct of “property” type rights. It goes back to the middle ages.

God gives God what is due to God in creation and supremely in the life and death of Jesus Christ. To be in Christ is to be a sharer in this iustitia. To bear the image of God and to have it resorted in Christ is to be a sharer of God honoring God in and through creation.

This is the final part of a short series in which I look at Stanley Grenz’s theological anthropology as it can be found in “The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei.”

From our brief survey of Grenz’s method and content it is quite clear that Grenz has attempted to pen a biblically faithful, historically grounded theological anthropology which is sensitive to the problems of postmodernism. In this conclusion to this series of posts I want to assess several aspects of his historical-theological surveys, his use of the Trinity for theological anthropology, and his evangelical sensitivities. In doing so we can gauge the success of his project.

The first topic which draws our attention is his treatment of historical sources in theology. Though obviously showing deference towards these sources, Grenz subtly hints at his belief that “good” theology only came about in the modern period. One sees this theme in his belief that the psychological analogy for the trinity has rightly been abandoned in favor models that are closer to the social analogy for the trinity. One also notices this in his assessment of the concept of self. The past was highly individualistic, only now have we recovered a relational basis for the self. Finally one sees this in his surveys of the imago Dei. Christian theology began with a structural view, helpfully moved towards a relational view, and it has finally matured into a “destiny”/Kaleidoscopic view of the image of God. He may be correct in believing that these more modern views are actually truer than the older views. However, to base one’s assessment of the matters solely upon a concept of historical development or unfolding is to commit chronological snobbery. To add to this problem, Grenz’s preference for the new and modern (or should I say post-modern) leads him to flatten out distinctions in the historical theologies he examines. These are important distinctions which could undermine his assessments. For instance, he sees Augustine as the progenitor of inward individualism. Though there is certainly an inward aspect of Augustine’s spirituality, to say it underlies an individualistic ontology is quite off the mark. James Smith has argued that an Augustinian ontology is what he calls an “intentional account of human persons.” The concept of humans as intentional beings “emphasizes that our being in the world is always characterized by a dynamic, “ek-static” orientation that “intends” the world or “aims at” the world as an object of consciousness.”[1] Or to put it more simply, “we are essentially and ultimately lovers. To be human is to love, and it is what we love that defines who we are. Our ultimate love is constitutive of our identity;”[2] using Smith’s catchy title of his popular level book you are what you love. An Augustinian ontology considers persons in light of their relationship (intentionally or love) to other beings and things. If what one loves constitutes one’s being, necessarily being cannot be individualistic, since it is defined by the other. Another minor point of historical accuracy, Grenz critiques Edwards’s spirituality as being “focused squarely on the self,” saying, “According to Edwards, true saints can discern experimentally the presence of true religion within themselves.”[3] Although its true that Edwards believed one could not know with certainty the status of other Christians, what comes to mind is what Edwards says is the best sign of one’s salvation: charity. The greatest sign of salvation is whether or not one actually loves one’s neighbor. This is far from the sort of individualistic piety Grenz pegs onto Edwards.[4] These are just two examples of how his negative disposition for the past leads Grenz to skew his readings of important theological figures.

A second issue present in Grenz’s work that deserves attention is his use of Trinitarian theology for developing anthropological conclusions. One key example is his use of Zizioulas’s metaphysics: being as communion (i.e that there is no true being without communion or to be a person is to be in relation to other persons). He moves from Trinitarian ontology to human ontology, claiming that to be a person is to be in a certain sort of relation to other persons (an ecclesial relation). Although this might be a legitimate move to make, he never stops to ask “can we predicated persons in the same sense to God as we can of human beings?” The fact that the Trinity is a model for humanity and community is almost a truism today. However we should ask, “in which respects and to what extent the Trinity should serve as a model for human community?” Here, the works of theologians like Fred Sanders, Stephen Holmes, and Karen Kilby come to mind. For instance Kilby writes that “There is intrinsic limitation deriving from our creatureliness, which means that Trinitarian concepts can only analogously be applied to human community.”[5] This hesitation, to move too quickly from the Trinity to humanity, is grounded in the well worn Eastern tradition (which ironically is so prominent in the theology of which social Trinitarianism claims its roots) of apophaticism. Again, I am not claiming that Grenz conclusions are off the mark, rather that he has not engaged what is probably the most pressing critique of social Trinitarianism which makes the “Trinity our social program.”

Finally, I would like to assess the evangelical pedigree of this work. Part of what it means to be evangelical is to take the gospel seriously. This means taking the healing reality of God’s reconciliation of the world through Christ, and the church’s call to proclaim that reality as it is articulated in Scripture, seriously. Grenz has written a text which meets these marks. Beginning with the fact that he seeks to articulate the reality of the Trinitarian God to a postmodern world to the fact that he is concerned with helping the church live out its transformation according to the image of Christ, this book is grounded in the mission of the gospel. In this work Grenz takes seriously what scripture says and he is missionally oriented. Despite some of the historical and theological shortcomings of this book, one cannot deny the fact that Grenz has written a text which has the potential to make important contributions to the church living out its mission of being a preview of the new humanity shaped in the true imago Dei, Jesus Christ.

[4] For more on the notion that Edwards’s spirituality and ethics was other-centered (and fully Trinitarian) see Christopher Woznicki, “Bad Books and The Glorious Trinity: Jonathan Edwards on the Sexual Holiness of the Church” in McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry vol. 16 (2014-2015)

This is part two of a short series in which I look at Stanley Grenz’s theological anthropology as it can be found in “The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei.”

As I have already hinted in the previous post, Grenz’s project can best be understood as intentionally engaging post-modernism from an evangelical perspective. Grenz states that this project is a part of a larger attempt in attempting to “set forth a coherent Christian theological articulation that is cognizant of the intellectual challenges posed by central postmodern sensitivities.” In addition to his attunement to postmodern sensitivities, Grenz is attuned to the 20th century renaissance of Trinitarian theology and the implications of Trinitarianism for the rest of theology. Grenz explicitly states that truly Trinitarian theology does not simply involve engaging with the doctrine of the Trinity, it “entails viewing all aspects of Christian doctrine in a Trinitarian light.” These two features of his method, his post-modern sensibilities and Trinitarian commitments, emerge as the first key component of his method for doing theological anthropology: a commitment to doing theological anthropology simultaneously from above and from below, that is from the divine to the creaturely and from the creaturely to the divine. This commitment to simultaneously doing theology from above and from below is just one example of how his postmodern sensibilities affect his theological method. As an evangelical, he clearly wants to give appropriate authority to the typical “from above” type sources: Scripture, Creeds, Tradition. However, being sensitive to post-modernism, he realizes that all theology is done in a creaturely context, which in turn affect how we understand the “from-above” type sources. Thus Grenz allows these sources to mutually inform one another.

In addition to his commitment to doing theological anthropology simultaneously from above and from below Grenz is committed to doing what could be called Christological Anthropology. Briefly, this can be thought of as approach to theological anthropology “in which Christology warrants important claims about what it means to be human.” This is especially clear towards the final chapters of The Social God and the Relational Self. For instance in the chapter titled “From Humankind to the True Human” Grenz has a section titled “The Imago Dei and the True Human” in which he highlights the fact that the New Testament writers elevate Christ as the image of God, and by extension declare that “the believing Community shares in this new Christocentric anthropology.” Chapters five and six can be understood as the development of this Christological Anthropology. In chapter five he develops what Scripture means when it says that Christ is the image of God and in chapter six he develops the notion that humanity’s eschatological telos is participation in the image of Christ.

Another one of Grenz’s methodological commitments is his commitment to doing theology for the sake of the church. For Grenz this means that theology is communal and eschatological. Once again, this commitment is expressed in the final four chapters of his book where it becomes clear that he does not see participation in Christ’s image as an individualistic goal, rather he states that participation in Christ’s image is the eschatological destiny given to the new humanity. Further, Grenz adds that “the transformation is not directed toward individuals in isolation….Instead, it involves the transformation of all one’s relationships, and it entails the creation of a new community of those who share together in the transforming presence of the Spirit.” Grenz’s commitment to theology which is communal and eschatological can further be seen in his final constructive proposal in which he states the Christian identify is more than personal, it is a shared identity. This shared identity is what Grenz calls the Ecclesial Self. The self, which finds its fulfillment in the eschaton, is constituted through the relationality of those who by the Spirit are “in Christ’.”

One final, methodological commitment, which might be easy to overlook is Grenz’s Pannenbergian understanding of the development of history and theology. Pannenberg, who was Grenz’s doktorvater, believed that the truth of Christian doctrine unfolds partly by means discussion and deliberation. This belief leads Pannenberg to include long sections of exposition detailing the historical development of doctrine in his multi-volume systematic theology. In providing long, detailed outlines behind the history of doctrines, he shows his belief that doctrine does not just materialize, rather doctrine has a history which develops and eventually matures. The structure of Grenz’s work displays his commitment to a method akin to Pannenberg’s. In part one Grenz sketches the development of Trinitarian thought from Hegel to LaCugna. He states that this ongoing development of Trinitarian theology entails “a more profound understanding of God as inherently relational and dynamic.” His belief that doctrine develops positively by means of theological debate is made even clearer when he says that “the retrieval of doctrine of the Trinity has paved the way for a fully theological anthropology,” (as if this was impossible prior to the 20th century). His commitment to a Pannenbergian understanding of the development of history and theology is further displayed in the fact that chapters two and three map the conditions that gave birth to the postmodern loss of self. Chapter two traces the rise of the concept of the centered self whereas chapter three traces the undoing of the concept of self. Much like Pannenberg who traces the historical development of concepts in depth, for the sake of showing that true doctrine develops and unfolds through history, Grenz seems to imply that a more accurate notion of the self has gradually developed thanks to these historical theological and philosophical movements. In other words, a truer anthropology has developed and is developing through the history of theology.

Today marks the beginning of a short series in which I look at Stanley Grenz’s theological anthropology as it can be found in “The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei.”

In writing The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei the late Stanley Grenz, a Canadian evangelical theologian, joins a chorus of voices drawing a connection between Trinitarian theology and social concerns. Grenz, is well known for being one of the most significant Trinitarian Evangelical theologians. Even more importantly, Grenz is known for his engagement with postmodernism grounded from an evangelical perspective. Even stating that TheMatrix of Christian Theology, of which The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei is the first volume, is intended to provide “the contours of an appropriate theological Construction that takes seriously postmodern concerns, sensitivities, and insights.” (x) Thus, the location of Grenz’s project is best understood as the intersection between post-modernism and evangelicalism. As an evangelical theologian Grenz wants to take seriously the deposit of faith found in Scripture, tradition, and evangelical theology; all while acknowledging the traditional foundationalist way of doing evangelical theology is under fire, especially from philosophers and theologians advocating for a post-foundational epistemology. Thus Grenz attempts to take a post-foundational approach to his theology. This post-foundationalism builds on the insight that “belief systems, including Christian doctrinal constructions, are better viewed as forming a web – or a mosaic – than an epistemological house built upon an unassailable foundation.” (x) This mosaic includes “canonical scripture, the theological heritage of the church, and the intellectual currents of wider culture.” (x)

This brief series of blogs seeks to engage with this post-modern yet thoroughly evangelical contribution to theological anthropology. Over the next few days I will highlight some key features of Grenz’s method and manner of argumentation, provide an overview of his argument, and conclude by considering some of the strengths and weaknesses of Grenz’s project.

Among recent philosophical responses to McCall’s position a paper co-written by Philip Gons and Andrew Naselli and another by Bruce Ware stand out as the most significant. Gons and Naselli argue that McCall’s argument conflates the term “essentially” with “belonging to the essence.” Ware puts forth a reductio ad absurdum argument against McCall and shows McCall’s logic entails a denial of homoousios.

This paper enters into this debate by examining Gons and Naselli’s argument. It engages with recent philosophical literature dealing with the meaning of the term “essence” in order to show that their argument against McCall is unfounded.

The paper then turns to Ware’s argument to show that he has made a category mistake in comparing the property of being eternally begotten and the property of being functionally subordinate in all time segments in all possible worlds. Having critically examined these recent philosophical responses to McCall we see that McCall’s argument still holds up against its objectors.